From laser scanning of cheese blocks to multi-axis servo-controlled case and tray packers, this dairy plant makes automated packaging systems a top priority.

Situated near Dresden, Germany, in a small town called Leppersdorf, the enormous dairy called Mueller-Plant is filled with enough automated packaging equipment to make even a veteran packaging journalist dizzy. Among the highlights:

• a line for slicing, packaging, and case packing of sliced cheese

• a line for secondary packaging of round cheese pieces into corrugated trays followed by robotic placement of the trays onto pallets.

This story looks at both operations, beginning with the sliced cheese line.

The sliced cheese line begins with a servo-driven automatic slicer from Weber that attains impressive levels of throughput, flexibility, and accuracy thanks to the servo technology on which it’s based. Including infeed, slicing, and discharge stations, a total of 23 servo motors are deployed. All are supplied by ELAU, as is the PacDrive controller that commands the servos.

Like the Weber system at the head of the line, the A+F ModuLine case packer also benefits greatly from servo-based design principles. It has 12 axes of motion executed by ELAU servo motors. Again, an ELAU PacDrive controller controls the case packer.

“It always comes down to value and reliability,” says Mueller Project Manager Jens Martin in explaining why the A+F machine was selected. Servo technology brings the necessary versatility to the machine.

Read the whole story.

By Pat Reynolds, Packaging World Editor